Hopper's World: Emulation Trilogy, #3

By D.A. Hill

Humanity will survive, but in what form?

 

Seventy years after a massive asteroid strike, three groups of people have survived.

 

In Colorado Springs, nearly a thousand biological humans who see themselves as the legitimate heirs to the United States. Dedicating themselves to repopulating the planet, no matter how great the violation of the rights of women, they are oblivious to the nation's infrastructure crumbling around them.

 

Aboard Newton's Ark, a hundred thirty Emulated Minds suffer under the oppressive regime of Andre Waleski, unaware the satellite carrying the computers which host the virtual environment is slowly losing altitude, and will eventually crash.

 

At the University of Colorado in Boulder, a dozen Emulated Minds have taken physical form via the wonders of nano-technology. They have the knowledge to preserve Twenty-First Century technological civilization, but their leaders, Regina Lopez and Cyrus Jones, refuse to intervene.

 

While Elizabeth Carlson focuses on rescuing those aboard the Ark, her brother Eric teams up with Isabel Hayes, an exceptional young woman from Colorado Springs, hoping to ensure a brighter future for humanity. But can such disparate groups work together, or live together, when they disagree violently on what it means to be human?

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.A. Hill
• Release date: Apr 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201191047

Book preview

prologue

September 2167

Stanislav Petrov lay on the interface chair, eyes closed, his chest slowly rising and falling as he waited for the backup to finish. Unlike nano-bot bodies, the biological ones had no link constantly sending changes in the brain’s state to a server somewhere. You had to sit yourself down in a chair like this one. Most people did it every few weeks, an insurance policy against unexpected death. But he made time every day now. Which was fine. He no longer had the energy to do anything but lie in bed and wait for the inevitable.

Ten minutes in, he opened his eyes at the sound of the door. Too soon for the backup to be finished, he expected to see a staff member come to deal with some unexpected problem. Instead, a sister and brother of his entered the room. He knew they were Elizabeth and Eric by the lack of name tags. The Elizabeth and the Eric, the closest thing to the originals. He and this Eric were close, having worked together for years on the resettlement project. They must have come all the way down from Missoula to see him. To say a final farewell.

How are you doing? Elizabeth said, her brow tight with concern.

He chuckled. I’ve been better. Not yet sixty, his illness was pure random bad luck. There were hundreds of Ricky copies, each with DNA identical to his, all cloned from the same corpse he’d stuck in a morgue refrigerator years ago. None of them suffered from this disease, one of the few still incurable with modern science. But his looming death was still a choice. His wife would print him a new body if he asked. A young, healthy one that should grant him another sixty to eighty years before confronting the choice of life or death again.

Eric placed a hand on his shoulder. Are you sure about not rebooting?

Leaving Jamila was gut-wrenching. But it wasn’t forever. She would join him when her time came. He missed her already. But he couldn’t abide her seeing him like this, a shadow of himself, so they had said their goodbyes a week ago. Could he wait decades to see her again, to hold her again? He had to. He had to set an example. And he couldn’t put her in the position of violating her promise to the others, the same promise he had made and was about to fulfill.

He drew a deep breath, steeling himself. I’ve had a hundred fifty years. You, of all people, know what an amazing ride it’s been. I’m ready.

His brother and sister responded with forced smiles, letting the room fill with an awkward silence. Time to change the subject. How is Tom? he said to Elizabeth.

He’s great.

And Cyrus and Regina?

Busy with great-grandchildren, Elizabeth said, before her face stiffened. The same. Stubborn as ever.

You didn’t tell them… about… this?

No, Eric said. We didn’t think they would—

It isn’t personal, Elizabeth said.

I know. It hurt, but he and his many brothers and sisters made their peace with it long ago. If they mourned every one of us, it would break them. It would break anyone. It’s enough that you guys are with them.

We still feel guilty about that, Elizabeth said.

Don’t. It’s been years. We all agreed. As we did to… He shrugged.

The idea of printed bodies and rebooted minds had found increasing acceptance over the years, especially when onrushing mortality transformed it from a distant, abstract moral question to an immediate, practical, self-interested one. But too many people still viewed the copies as less than human. Having achieved their goal of securing a civilized future for humanity, the copies had made a pact—when they died, they wouldn’t reboot, not here, not in biological bodies.

Eventually they would have their own world, while this would become a world without duplicates, as it was before an earlier version of him created the first copies six decades ago. I’ve had this same thought every day for the past ten days. But maybe today will be—

chapter 1

November 2105

Ricky’s body screamed for mercy after being bounced up and down in the back of an enclosed truck for hours, with just his overstuffed pack to cushion his butt. Couldn’t they use something with softer suspension? Of course they could. But the discomfort and disorientation were part of the test.

The vehicle jerked to a stop just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, throwing him to the floor. The tailgate dropped open with an eardrum-hammering clang. This is it, Hopper. The driver motioned for him to get out. And before you ask—

You can’t tell me where we are. Ricky dusted himself off, threw his pack out, and jumped down after it. And I wasn’t going to ask. The chill night air immediately found a way under his heavy coat. He wrapped it tighter around his body.

The driver climbed back into the cab, then leaned out the window. Happy navigating, son, he said with a wave as he drove off.

Spinning in a circle, Ricky took in the featureless prairie. The truck was just a speck of movement on the horizon by the time he completed a full rotation. He wanted to be here, he needed to be here, but it took all his willpower not to run after the receding vehicle. Instead, he pulled his sleeping bag and ground sheet from his pack and spread them on the snow-dusted ground. He wriggled his way into the sleeping bag, still dressed, ignoring the hard, lumpy surface under his back.

Resting his head on his pack, he stared at the stars above. I have to succeed, he hollered at the night sky. I have to, he said, this time quietly to himself. Not everyone made it home alive. But he would. He had to. This was his last shot. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds could pair up by choice, but he hadn’t bothered attending the partnering ceremonies. No girl his age had ever shown the slightest interest in him. It wasn’t for want of effort on his part. He’d spent countless hours in the gym building a well-toned physique. But his awkward manner was less amenable to change. He lacked that extra sense the popular boys seemed to have, the one that told them how to behave around girls.

Yes, he could focus on his career instead. He was smarter than average, and hard-working. He could even be Chief Engineer one day, which would earn him a wife for sure. But he wanted a wife now, not when he was an old man. He couldn’t wait decades or even years. He wouldn’t. For a moment he considered quitting the warmth of his sleeping bag to start walking, but that was a certain recipe for getting lost, or worse. He couldn’t let that happen. At almost nineteen, he was ready for marriage and a family. That was the way things were meant to be.

***

You’re a foolish girl, Isabel Hayes. One day, soon enough, you’ll regret not choosing. Her mother’s words, though delivered a year ago on her eighteenth birthday and motivated by love, still echoed accusingly in her mind. She had responded with defiance, despite knowing her mom was right.

The start of the annual navigation exercise, in which young men competed for their choice of mate, drove home the consequences of her stubbornness. It also reminded headstrong young women like her they were objects, commodities, prizes for men. That wasn’t a thought she would ever dare voice aloud. But despite the public adulation of women as wives and mothers, that’s what they were, chattels for men to use as they saw fit.

It wasn’t really the fault of the young men. They had no more choice than she did. Sure, they got to choose a wife, but what alternative did they have? And being married and having children wouldn’t be so bad, except she could only pursue her training if she remained single. One day, perhaps. Once she was qualified. If she could find a man who would understand and support her career.

No such man exists.

Older women like Dr. Wylie sometimes hinted at an age of gender equality before the asteroid. Maybe it was true, as incredible as it seemed. But she had never seen a man treat a woman as a true equal, not once in her entire life. Even her father, though he loved her mother, regarded his wife as subservient.

Not that she could wait for her dream man to appear, even if he was out there somewhere. The winners weren’t her concern. They wouldn’t pick her. But this year the numbers matched. Ten young women. Ten young men. Nine would pass over her, each preferring any of the other girls, even the unattractive ones, to a girl crazy enough to have her heart set on a career. She didn’t care. She didn’t want any of them. But the loser? Number ten, whoever he was, would claim her rather than remain alone. Thus would end her dreams of becoming a doctor. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

***

Ricky woke to the rising sun in his eyes, still in the spot where the truck dumped him. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, stretching his cold, stiff joints as he rose to his feet. Fifty jumping jacks got his blood pumping and drew a little warmth to his extremities. He packed his gear, then grabbed an energy bar from his pack, nibbling it as he gazed at the sunrise. Ironically, they didn’t allow the navigators to carry any device that might help with navigation, not even a watch. But he’d memorized the sun tables for this month. Today the sun rose at 6.31 am, at a bearing of 109 degrees. Now he could tell north from south and east from west.

Traveling at fifty or sixty miles an hour for five or six hours, the truck would have covered maybe three hundred miles. He must still be somewhere in Colorado, and not the mountainous western half. But was he north or south of home? He could use the sun to establish his latitude, but not until noon. The landscape looked more like Colorado’s north-east than the south-eastern part of the state, although he was trying to compare a ground level view with his memory of satellite photos. He could be wrong. Should he waste half a day not moving, or risk losing an entire day heading in the wrong direction and then having to double back?

He paced in a circle for several minutes while trying to decide, until the need to move overwhelmed all other considerations. He hoisted his pack onto his back and started south, bent under the weight of two weeks’ rations. A check of the sun at noon confirmed he had made the right choice. Then it was one foot after the other, from sunrise to sunset, day after day. To relieve the boredom, he tried recalling the contents of his engineering textbooks. When he got stuck he sang to himself, thankful his only audience was a few prairie dogs, because he sure as hell couldn’t carry a tune.

He turned west on the seventh day. If his estimated starting point was correct, he’d run into the Rockies soon. But he would die out here if he was wrong, the only question being whether hypothermia would finish him before hunger did.

To his relief, he caught his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains on the horizon late that afternoon, fittingly on the fourth Thursday in November. Thanksgiving. Definitely a day to give thanks. His reasoning had proved sound. All the time he spent training had paid off. He was grateful for having come this far, but his celebratory meal did little more than fill his belly. The freeze-dried sweet potato was almost good, and the green beans passable. But the strips of synthetic turkey were dry and stringy, while the cranberry sauce lived up to its reputation for taking on a slimy consistency once reconstituted with water.

A day and a half later, the mountains were less than twenty or thirty miles away, sharp, majestic snow-tipped peaks of dark granite reaching for the sky. He pushed on toward the foothills, hoping for a recognizable landmark, something to tell him how far he was from home.

He noticed a change in the ground beneath his feet an hour after stopping for lunch. He squatted, sweeping the surface with his hand. Concrete, though cracked and filled with weeds. Could it answer his question? As wide as six or eight lanes, even with the drifting snow encroaching from the sides, it ran dead straight for as far as he could see.

The hardtop came to an abrupt end after he’d walked for forty-five minutes. During his training, he taught himself to maintain a steady pace of about four miles per hour. This was either a three mile long extra-wide road to nowhere—which made no sense—or a runway. At a major airport, given the length. And the complex of low, interconnected buildings half a mile off to his right must be the terminal.

He scanned the horizon, his gaze stopping on a cluster of skyscrapers, tiny fingers in the distance. Downtown Denver. Home was only seventy or eighty miles south! He glanced up at the sun, a faint, fuzzy disk in a dull, cloudy sky. Mid-morning. If he pushed the pace, following major roads and only sleeping when he couldn’t stay upright, he could make it back the night after next. Twelve days wouldn’t threaten the record, but it was better than average. He might arrive first. More likely he’d finish second or third, depending on where they had dropped his peers and how well they navigated. But anywhere in the top five would be higher than he ever hoped and enough to choose a woman he really desired.

***

The camera feed on Eric Carlson’s screen showed what looked like a torrential downpour, the source a damaged valve in the main pump-house supplying water to Colorado Springs and surrounding areas. The water spewed from a split in the valve’s housing, a high pressure spray hitting the metal roof twenty feet above, causing it to reverberate like a drum before raining back down to inundate the room. Rivers of water ran from every corner of the building into a drain in the center of the floor.

He glanced at the adjacent terminal where Cyrus Jones sat. Telemetry displayed on his adoptive father’s screen quantified the impact of the disaster: thousands of gallons of potable water wasted every hour while faucets across Colorado Springs ran dry.

Eric’s fingers danced over his keyboard, searching for a fix.

Damn. He could see only one option to stop the uncontrolled flow. With a click, the geyser of water became a gentle bubbling fountain, slowing to a trickle over the next minute. The flood is over, Eric said, but water is out across the city.

At least that will get Lance’s attention. Cyrus switched his screen to the feed from the Chief Engineer’s office. Lance Hargraves was already pulling on a heavy coat, hat, and gloves, dressing to head out into the chill of a November evening in Colorado. See, he’s onto it already.

We can’t keep doing this to him, Dad. Replacing the valve will be a cold, wet, miserable task. He’s not a young man anymore.

He’s got Riley Hernandez to help. And that other kid. Ricky something.

Hernandez is no AJ Hobb and you know it, Eric said. They were barely holding things together before AJ died. As for Richard Hopper, he seems smart, but he’s just out of high school. He won’t be any real use to Lance for years.

What’s the alternative?

Start fixing stuff ourselves, especially the bots, so they can make repairs like they’re supposed to, before anyone needs to intervene.

It’s too dangerous. Someone would see us, if not this time, then the next, or the one after.

Eric shook his head in exasperation. They’d argued about this before, always with the same frustrating result.

We have to hope Cheyenne Mountain has forgotten about us, Cyrus said. But if they haven’t, they won’t be fond memories. Not after the incident with Branston.

I’d do it all again.

I’m not blaming you. But we can’t put ourselves in that situation again. They fear us because we’re different. Frightened people do stupid things.

The facts are the facts. These equipment failures are snowballing. There’s no hope of maintaining a modern civilization without functioning technology. Eric rocked back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. We’re talking about a return to the Dark Ages, Dad. But way worse, because we have so much further to fall than the Romans did.

chapter 2

Eric stepped from the dorm room where he usually slept. He could have been like the rest of the crew and moved into a house nearby, but living in a place built for families would be a constant reminder he was single. Anyway, he didn’t feel alone, though his footsteps echoed down an empty hall. Over the years, he’d created an elaborate picture in his mind of the students who once resided behind those closed doors. Cecily’s room, he thought as he walked past one particular door. Wonder what Gerry is up to? he asked himself silently as he passed another.

You’re only slightly insane, man.

Yeah, I know.

It was snowing lightly when he exited the building, but a fierce wind whisked the tiny icicles into his face, biting at his facsimile skin. He zipped the collar of his parka higher, exposing as little of his fake-but-still-cold-sensitive skin as possible on the long walk to the truck. He’d parked it several streets away earlier that day, far enough the sound of him leaving wouldn’t wake anyone.

The destination for his clandestine mission was the primary control center for Colorado’s water system. He’d tried to heed his father’s warnings and leave it alone, but the recent equipment failure nagged at him. Lance had replaced the broken valve, but didn’t realize there was a bigger problem. As far as he knew, the control system had functioned as designed and shut down the water supply. But every undetected fault in the system added to a potential avalanche of failures.

Eric didn’t even try convincing his parents of the wisdom of this trip, though the control center in the eastern suburbs of Denver was seventy miles north of Colorado Springs, and patrols from Cheyenne Mountain never ventured north of Castle Rock, twenty-five miles south of downtown Denver. Eric still played it safe and took a roundabout route, heading north-west for about fifty miles, then south for a similar distance before turning east back toward Denver.

The trip took two-and-a-half hours, but by leaving at 3 am he arrived well before sunrise. He spent the morning testing the system from top to bottom. Things were as bad as he feared, perhaps worse. He had planned to head home after dark anyway, but it took until late into the evening to replace, repair or bypass all the failed components, and reset the system. Still, with luck, he’d be back before his parents even noticed his absence.

But this was just the start. 2040s technology was designed for minimal human intervention, with routine maintenance done by automated bots. That wasn’t the same thing as zero human attention for over fifty years. Failures the bots couldn’t fix were piling up, and more troubling, the bots themselves were deteriorating. Half the bots at the water control center were out of action. Nobody could have foreseen the need to automate the process of fixing maintenance bots. If infrastructure across the entire economy was decaying at the same rate, there would have to be many more trips like this one, and soon, before they reached a tipping point…

***

Ricky’s backpack sat lighter now he’d eaten more than half his rations, though it was still heavy enough for the straps to dig in, further irritating the chafed skin on his shoulders and under his arms. Apart from his remaining food, and the water bottles strapped to the sides, it held his sleeping bag and ground mat, along with a portable stove and cooking utensils.

His outfit was stiff with dirt and sweat after a week and a half without a proper bath, though he’d grown oblivious to his own stench. Unless he stopped to think about it. And there it was: a cross between everyday body odor and uric acid. The rank aroma of concentrated stale piss. Fortunately, his pack also contained a change of clothes for the last day. He’d find a place closer to Colorado Springs to wash up and change. Then he would arrive home looking and smelling halfway decent, ready to claim the woman who would be his wife.

He leaned forward into the howling wind. Ignoring his irritated skin, weary legs and aching feet, he quickened his stride, pushing on with renewed vigor as he considered the unexpected options soon to be available to him. Any man would consider looks, but attitudes were just as important. What he wanted, what his rivals wanted too, was a girl who now regretted not choosing a husband before her eighteenth birthday, and who, with a year or two of extra maturity, had reconciled herself to her rightful role. None of them wanted to be stuck with a woman too stupid or too headstrong to realize her mistake. Someone like Isabel Hayes. She was the prettiest of the bunch, but had some strange views about a woman’s place. What sort of wife and mother would she be, always yearning for something else, something she couldn’t have?

He continued thinking about who he’d pick as he made his way closer to home. He’d narrowed the field weeks ago to one or two suitable girls who he expected would still be available when he came in late. But now, faced with the possibility of choosing one of the more desirable girls, it made sense to revisit his choice. It wasn’t just the thought of picking one of the pretty ones, but the sense of power the idea gave him. What a rush, to think one of those girls who wouldn’t give him a second look would be his for the choosing.

As he lifted his right leg and swung his foot forward like a pendulum, something he’d done two or three hundred thousand times in the past nine days, his left boot lost traction. Perhaps thinking about selecting his bride had distracted him. Or maybe it was just a freak accident. Whatever the reason, he didn’t see the ice. The constant passage of windblown snow had scoured the surface, removing the sheen so the icy layer blended with the surrounding snow.

He threw his arms out and arched his back to steady himself, and might have succeeded had his pack not moved and unbalanced him. Still, the result should have been just a few bruises, or a sprained ankle or twisted knee. But he landed at an unfortunate angle, his neck snapping back violently and smashing his temple into a patch of black ice with a sickening thud.

He was too stunned at first to feel the full pain of the impact. Disappointment welled, his chances of finishing anywhere but dead last now gone. He chuckled at his own hubris. Then he tried to stand, but his arms and legs refused to move. His heart raced while his breathing grew shallower. His situation was far worse than finishing late.

It can’t end like this!

He tried once more to rise, but without conviction. His panic ebbed as drifting snow piled up against his body, embracing him like a warm, soft blanket. A gentle calm descended as he lost consciousness, washing away his dreams of the wife he would never marry now.

***

As Eric headed north out of Denver on I-25, a loud thump interrupted his drive home. A violent jolt followed, lifting the right side of his Ford Explorer and dropping it down again, moments later repeating in the same order—thump, jolt, lift, drop—as the front wheel, then the back, rolled over some unseen obstacle.

He stomped on the brake pedal, overriding the autopilot.

The vehicle drew to a jack hammering stop as the anti-lock braking system engaged and disengaged in quick succession, preventing a skid on the icy surface. He leaned his forehead on the steering wheel. Just what I need. He didn’t see whatever his vehicle hit. Understandable. Watching the road was the autopilot’s job, but it had missed the object too. One of the many snowdrifts reaching out into the highway like fingers must have hidden it, not only from human eyes but also from the vehicle’s sensors. If they couldn’t see it, he couldn’t be expected to, could he?

That he wasn’t blameworthy didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying and inconvenient. He climbed out with an impatient sigh and walked around the truck. The tires and rims appeared undamaged, and he couldn’t see any dents in the body panels. What about the suspension? He would need to lift it on a hoist to inspect the undercarriage, but any serious damage would be obvious once he tried driving it. Worst case, he’d have to grab another vehicle.

In the meantime, it might help if he knew what he’d hit. His eyes reached back down the road. A lump was visible even at this distance, but what was it? He approached to within five yards, when his knees locked up as if he’d reached the edge of a great precipice.

I ran over someone.

He inched closer, leaning over the body. A man, face down, unmoving, a hood covering his head. Squatting beside the lifeless form, he pressed two fingers to the side of the neck. No pulse, and the flesh, a pallid shade of gray, was cold and unyielding to the touch, like meat just pulled from a freezer. His shoulders dropped as he released the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He was dead before I hit him. Long enough to freeze solid. The wheels had barely made a dent where they passed over the torso. But a pool of blood lay beneath the man’s face.

On his knees now, pushing with both hands, he rolled the body onto its back.

He jumped back in shock. It looked like… It couldn’t be. He rushed back to the truck, sliding his feet like a skater on the icy road, then jerked open the door and grabbed his pad off the passenger seat. He pulled up the Cheyenne Mountain records as he walked back to the corpse, searching